


liberator

by Sathanas



Category: Legacy of Kain
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Obsession, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-05 05:23:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1090107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sathanas/pseuds/Sathanas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The face he sees in the scrying pool is familiar. And then it is not. And then it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	liberator

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Peace and purity walk with the Warrior-Priests of the Sarafan Order, or so the romantics say. To Raziel's eye, he walks the Stronghold's stone halls alone, wondering at the optimism of romantic minds. There are, in fact, great fathoms of war left in Nosgoth. Oh, there are _long_ , dark reaches where the Order has no power, shadowlands overrun with creeping horrors. In the south, where civilized settlements string tightly together like precious beads, hymns ring out from the highest cathedrals at dawn and dusk to dispel the servants of evil. It is a brave, beautiful gesture, but evil things practice their own low worship in ways that even the Sarafan cannot anticipate. They answer evensong with silence, a breath drawn and held through a day, a night and all the seasons. Vampires run like thieves in that long hush, in the soundless space between faith and fear. And so, even in the halls of the Sarafan Stronghold, Raziel goes armed and armoured against the threat of ambush, wishing it was possible to exchange peace and purity for a drop of direct divine intervention. Moonlight makes the glory of crusade a weak, watery thing, easily bisected by flashing talons and the sucking grasp of undead lips. Though his own fears gall him, he does not find their company surprising. Humans are born into the arms of terror, he tells himself grimly. It is the first and the last thing they may ever know.

Praise be that first and last should be far between and divided by defiance. All around him, the Stronghold looms cavernous and stern, a monument raised in the safe haven of faith. Within the thick outer walls, it unfurls like a palace filled with works of rare value, held in trust under the Order's protection. Raziel feels the weight of that trust every day; thinks, every day, that perhaps it grows heavier. Years have passed since he spoke his vows of loyalty to the Circle of Nine, promising to defend the realms of humanity, thinking that he understood sacrifice — but, young as he was, he had not realized that sacrifice could happen so slowly.

The opulent interior halls lie unlit, still as an empty skin. Raziel makes his way through them to the Circle's gathering room without hesitation, his path a familiar one. He is nine-times named a loyal servant of the Circle and their soaring Pillars. He is the Grand Inquisitor of their sacred Order of the Sarafan — and _blessed_ , the Time Guardian assures him, blessed as few mortals shall ever have the honour. Doors open for him, spears dip respectfully. He could stride into any private apartment, any alcove in the sprawl of citadels and forts and manors held by the Sarafan Brotherhood and expect only the warmest welcome.

Instead, he goes quietly, secretly, to the unguarded cloister of the Circle while they sleep (wondering: _Do_ they sleep, pressed by duty and otherworldly power as they are?), pausing only to listen for patrolling steps at either end of the darkened halls. While the thought of being discovered does not trouble him, solitude has a certain place in the body of ritual. He does not wish to speak with his brothers, not now. He does not wish to draw them into his doings, nor to share the gains of his covert explorations with them. It feels strange enough to pass before the blank eyes of his predecessors, long-dead Sarafan commanders whose features have been sculpted in fine, pale stone or puzzled together with chips of precious coloured glass. Darkened now, it seems that their faces turn downward to pin him with black eyes and heavy judgements.

Raziel slips through ornate doors, seals them fast again with a sigh. The gathering room is still scented faintly by the smoke of singed herb — cloves, he thinks, and something richly bitter, like hair or feathers burned against copper — and the weight of a previous ritual still lingers. It is likely that the Circle of Nine knows of his visits to this place, he tells himself. Sometimes he believes that they know all, and only spend their lives waiting for their premonitions to come to pass. They _must_ know. Unable to sanction him directly — for, despite all of his decoration, he is not and will never be one of their number, free to utilize their resources — it is their lack of intervention that assures him he commits no trespass or sin. _Let God strike me down if it is not so,_ he would say, but it does not seem right to invoke holy words on the cusp of what he is about to do.

At the centre of the room, there is a basin filled with clear water. Raziel approaches it, aware that he grips the hilt of his sword like a rope back to safety; after only the briefest pause of reluctance, he puts both hands on the smooth, stone rim. Silver light carves one side of the water's circular edge, as though it might be the moon, captured by old magic. That light comes from nowhere; no candles burn in the chamber, no stars wink through the high windows wheeling in the vault overhead. Raziel has seen the Circle engage with it hundreds of times, and has himself looked upon it for many hours without ill effect. Still, it unsettles him. Used benevolently by the Circle of Nine, the basin is a simple scrying lens that permits them a glimpse of all the lands over which they hold guardianship. Malek has brought him to study its images of nesting vampires and military movements across the world; and, on that first occasion, even he had urged, "Have no fear of what you witness. It is real, but the creatures you see have no awareness that you watch."

No fear, Raziel commands himself. No fear of the sight of suffering, or the thought of the basin's misuse. It is protected by the Circle and the whole Sarafan Brotherhood, like every treasure in their possession. And if he is alone with it now, it is only to make noble use of its power, dreadful though the practice might be.

He draws a breath, releases it, and looks into the water. Flat as a mirror, it shows his reflection faintly and he waits for the light to rise, his image to sharpen. It happens slowly, whereas a member of the Circle may summon the scrying sight in an instant, but he wills himself to be patient. When his own dark eyes are vivid on its surface, he murmurs, "The progenitor of vampires, Janos Audron."

The face he sees in the scrying pool is familiar. And then it is not. And then it is. The change comes about in an instant, obliterating his own features with another face in profile. Sharply-formed, skin pale as asphyxiated lips, hideous, elegant, ageless. The original vampire, if the oldest accounts are to be believed. Raziel's stomach churns at the sight of him, in spite of his beauty and the great distance dividing them. For a moment, he closes his eyes to the creature and braces himself up, feeling as though he has been struck hard in the chest. Then the moment passes and he grows calm. He has seen this face before. No fear, he vows, and steels himself to watch.

On most nights it is not long before a strange, profound sense of relief takes hold of him. Here, he thinks, is the true threat, the black anima in the empty vessels. Brought close to the vampire's side, Raziel feels the great weight of his duty ease. It is clear to him how he might strike back against a thing of flesh, even if that flesh is cursed and he stands, fragile, before an immortal. The first scrying was enough to teach him that. The others, countless nights spent gazing upon a terrible image bleeding in and out of focus, are harder to explain. Janos Audron is not precisely the monster Raziel had expected to behold. He often remains motionless for hours, shelled in his thoughts or surveying the lands at the limits of his perception. From night to night his surroundings will change — there has been a richly appointed room filled with shelved books; an icy, natural cavern; firelight and only darkness beyond it; a dungeon slimed with old blood; a beautiful garden lush with night-blooming flowers; a suffuse white glow — and though Raziel desperately wishes for the ability to turn and look about, he does not know how such a thing is done. He remains locked close to Audron, near enough that he feels able to reach out and touch the pale, powerful wings mantled at his back. He studies fine details, takes note of all there is to see in his limited range of perception.

And he returns, and returns again, and plans for the next night he might spend scrying. If nothing else, duty demands that he become familiar with the enemy's form. Know where the bones join, where the skin stretches over hollows in the muscles, how the wings move, whether the claws can be as dextrous as human hands. He is nearly like a painting, Raziel thinks. Some singular work of art constructed in the ancient days and secreted away until black forces found it, twisted it with unlife and cruelty and hunger. How else could he have been made? There is no known record of an Audron family line in Uschtenheim; nor have there ever been reports of a second creature like him anywhere in the world. Scholars say he was the very first, the father of vampires — but only God can create new beasts.

Raziel flinches. The comparison is unwholesome and unclean. It will need to be confessed, else he runs the risk of allowing unknown forces plant the first roots of disloyalty in his mind. This is something the Time Guardian, in his wisdom and concern, often cautions the anointed brothers to guard against. Vampires are sly, sideways creatures. Bearing the affront of their grace is difficult, even after many years. They move like ghosts behind gauze, bewitching in the way of all evil things, and the human heart is weak. To look upon the enemy's face is to wonder what he sees himself, Raziel supposes. Too many times he has caught cool empathy prowling in his thoughts, etching Audron's expressions with weariness, with melancholy, with the distant focus of someone who watches the line of the horizon and waits faithfully for a pledge to be fulfilled.

Moebius' warning, however, guides him true. Empathy cannot bridge the chasm between a man and a being with the heart of a slavering beast. Nor can the two share space peacefully; nor _should_ they, Raziel dares to think, when humanity bears fine works and honest prayer against the meaningless, endless monotony of vampiric malice, generations deep. It is not right.

An opportunity to strike at the crux of their existence will present itself, he is certain, and the Sarafan will be ready. He will make them ready, give them the courage they need to destroy the first and greatest of their adversaries. Over days and nights of watching and wondering, Raziel has been granted certain insights. A force he cannot explain guides his eye to the narrow bones banding Janos Audron's chest. An inspiration he does not question fills his mind with the words he must say to make his brothers understand their roles in the coming strike. _We can end fear and pain and helplessness,_ he will tell them. _We can set humanity free, with one blade through one breast._

"We carve it from him," Raziel murmurs, to hear the words spoken and see if he can believe them. "We take his heart and win the war."

It is difficult to say what happens first: does the image of Janos Audron turn to gaze directly into the scrying eye that observes him, or does Raziel's throat fill with ice? Their eyes meet for no more than an instant. Time enough for Raziel to feel as though he glimpses something like the sea or the sky, a great depth concealing cold currents and motions; and yet, no time at all.

Nothing changes, but suddenly Raziel is only staring at his own shocked, bloodless face, reflected in the dark water as clearly as he has ever seen it. He steps away from the basin as though it is full of serpents, circles it slowly without once giving it his unguarded back. When it does not issue a river of shrieking undead or infernal speech, he retreats from the Circle's gathering room silently, disturbed by the persistent clarity of his reflection. Beyond the heavy doors, he realizes that storms have risen outside like blood-summoned thralls; wind breathes through stone fissures and rain stains the glass faces of Sarafan Inquisitors who lived and died unremarkably. Framed through a black arch, Raziel sees ragged, hot lightning fragment the night sky above the lake.

Rather than returning to his own chambers, the young Grand Inquisitor goes to cloister and kneels at the altar for hours, several walls deep in the Sarafan stronghold, surrounded by the smoke of a hundred candles and oil lamps. As if he is, himself, under siege. As if he believes that stone and fire might be enough to hold back the hands of demons, and prayer might banish the illusion of a faint smile intended for no one nearby.


End file.
